"Here I go! I'm dissing appear!"

This note has been there for months now, and it always annoys me. Quit debasing yourself! Quit over-thanking! You deserve a functional refrigerator, you're worth it. Quit being a such a fridge martyr.

I want to see how long this note will stay. Clearly no one feels it's their place to remove the note, so it's still tirelessly thanking the powers that be for their generosity.

I'm similarly torn about low-battery chirps from the fire detectors. They bug the shit out of me, but I also need to know how long everyone else will live with the chirping if I don't say anything. Will we let it chirp for a week? a month? Or Jammies' disposable contact lenses - occasionally one will snag on the sink and not go down the drain, and I'll watch it slowly melt over the course of months. Or price tags, sometimes, the gummy ones from garage sales. Sometimes I just want to know how the time-lapse degradation will go if I don't tamper with it.

Also at work:

Agar dishes with notes that say DO NOT TOUCH! (minus the end "-Willie". "Do not touch Willie. Good advice!") Placed in all the convenient handspots for maximum science projectyness.

It's really hard not to touch the agar gel that says DO NOT TOUCH. I resisted but I don't appreciate the drain on my cognitive resources.

...

"Mama, do you know why I like this dance outfit?""Why, Ace?""Because it's half black, and I want to be bad when I grow up. And half pink, like a princess."

My bad princess. This is due to The Descendants.

Ace has taken to wearing three or four outfits at a time. (Three dresses in the above photo.) It's very cute but creates a lot of laundry. Sometimes she also dances for us, removing one outfit at a time, which is obviously hilarious and cute.

One last Ace quote. She was doing magic tricks for me by ducking out of sight."Ready Mama? I'm going to disappear! Here I go! I'm dissing appear!"

Whatever gerund conjugation that is, like wrecking havok, is great.....

A full week ahead of time, Hawaii asked if I could do her hair on Friday morning. She had a specific outfit she wanted to wear to school. I said no, I had my 6 am exercise class on Fridays, and Hawaii wakes up at 5:50. Hawaii asked if she could just wake up really early and I didn't see why not. I also wasn't sure she'd follow through.

But sure enough, six days later, I woke her up at 5:20 so that she could shower and I could do her hair at 5:40 and she could carry out her vision:

My dedicated cupcake.

...

Where did Hawaii get this love of fashion?

I haven't a clue.

(It turns out my hair holds a beehive incredibly well. It was a snap to get it to stay in that helmet all night long.)

This weekend was the Mermaid Festival. The Mermaid Society Ball was on Friday.

Compared to last year, it was 10% less surreal. The sheer surprise factor could not be replicated, and there were no actual mermaids swimming in tanks of water this year, perhaps due to cruelty of the job. Overall, the costumes were slightly less spectacular - there was a sort of Society Ball Standardized Look of women in fabulous sequin dresses with some Amazon-ordered mermaid garb.

It was also 25% better organized. They didn't run out of booze and food after two hours, primarily. And it was still an open bar, which feels luxurious. Aside from the missing mermaids in tanks, they still had land-mermaids on couches and outrageously costumed acrobats (like the phoenix above) to mill around. The glass bottom boats were taking guests on little trips.

This dude from the front:

and from the back:

turned out to be my GODDAMN CROSSFIT INSTRUCTOR who is not at all a flamboyant costume type. I could not have been more delighted; he had assumed that he wouldn't know anyone at the ball, and had agreed to be a decorated piece of meat as a favor to a friend. Those are three dimensional nipples on his shoulder blades.

Rooftop view as the ball closed down.

Our friends were about 1000% more in attendance, which was the best part. I never see much point in rhapsodizing here about my real life friends, because I also cherish my internet friends, and it seems obnoxious to wax on about one group of friends to another. But I love them dearly and it was such fun to have them there.

....

Saturday was the parade. Right after it started, there was a ten minute pause while a train rumbled by, further down the path of the parade. This samba group and drum line stopped in front of us, and treated us to an extended beat-thumping drum-and-dance routine while we all waited on the train:

It was so marvelous that I sort of teared up in that, "aren't humans wonderful, that they'll go to such lengths just to put on a nice parade for my children and other children to enjoy?" No one is dancing for their personal financial gain. They're dancing because we're motivated by love and motion and music and human connections, and sometimes it's all just very wonderful.

I failed to take any other photo of him playing soccer, but I did like this abstract structure he made with the magnablocks:

It looks like a midcentury modern airport to me.

Hawaii opted out of soccer this season. I used to feel that soccer was mandatory. I felt like it could be mandatory in a cheeky, endearing way that would not become awfully coercive. It sort of worked? We could have gotten Hawaii to play soccer again, and I don't think she would have really fought us over it?

But it started to seem meaningless. Right now she likes dance and karate. So do those things. Why did I care? (It's not mysterious. I cared because I personally did not like soccer when I was little, but only played because my brothers did and I couldn't conceive of anything else, and then eventually, years later, I started to like it. Hawaii is missing out on re-creating my exact life! Whut.)

Hawaii took this doll to school because she and some friends have formed a Stuffie Club:

(It's navy blue, and from Venezuela. It's not...stop.)

A boy in her class took it out of her backpack and yanked on the head and tore one of the seams. This is the second time he has damaged something of Hawaii's. She informed me that he got in trouble for both occasions.

What is notable is this: it took me so much effort not to say something like, "He's doing it because he likes you!"

Most likely he is in fact doing it because he likes her. Kids do that! It's just that I know the Official Feminists line is that you shouldn't put that burden on Hawaii. It's not her fucking problem if he is showing affection by damaging her stuff. She needs adults in her life to have her back, show disapproval, and make it clear that damaging her stuff is not okay, and not to make excuses for him and explain that boys behave badly when they like you.

The point was: god I had to choke back the, "it's because he likes you!" line. It was on the tip of my tongue a dozen times, and it took conscious, intentional feministing to bite it back......

They unveiled Mermaid statues to go around town, decorated by local artists:

As is done in cities.

Our neighbor with his catfish, made of litter from the river:

It is a giant puppet that wriggles like a Japanese mechanical coi. The scales are all flip flops.

....

When Rascal climbs into bed with us, he likes to sleep belly to belly with either me or Jammies. Not next to you, but on you. As in, he wants the parent to lie on their back, and he wants to climb on you and sleep on his stomach, with his head nestled on your solar plexus under your chin, heartbeat to heartbeat. It's the best. We did it with all of them as little babies, but Rascal is the only one who never let go of it.

Parade-watching.

(When Hawaii was a few days old, Jammies fell asleep with her on his belly like that, and rolled over and she fell off him all the way to the floor. He basically had a heart attack with fear that he'd concussed our brand new baby.)

Back in July, Jammies asked his boss if he could work from home three days a week. He has been pretty seriously burned out at work.

We waited and waited, and she didn't respond. We started seriously mapping out what it might take, financially, for Jammies to quit his job and take a few months off altogether. We would have been broke as hell (and drawing on savings some), but it was also sort of appealing - Jammies would have time at home to work on all his projects. We'd trade money for time.

But then finally, last week, after being prodded yet again by Jammies, she agreed that he can work from home three days a week. This is mostly a relief! We'll see if it helps replenish his well. And if it doesn't help, maybe he'll grab two beers and jump down the inflatable slide.

Ace is my Spirit Twin

Re: Ace is my Spirit Twin

Ace truly has the best lines. I've got it written down to go in the blog next week, but today she said, "When I grow up I want to be Mal [Maleficient's daughter] or Rapunzel. Or a mom, like you. If I'm a mom, I don't want to have a husband or any kids. Just a big house to myself."

The bird

The picture of you flipping the bird while wearing an epic beehive finally made me de-lurk so I could say that I have the biggest girl crush of all time. I mean, I've commented on here anonymously before, because we are of similar professions and our kids are the same age and you are generally an interesting person, but this one just pushed it over the edge. I know this sounds internet stalker creepy, but I really enjoy this little window into your life and I just have this weird feeling that we would get along fine. Anyway, thank you for being you. I will use this new persona to comment less anonymously. -Renee in Alabama

Re: The bird

Oh my gosh, what a seriously nice comment to read. I'm sure we would get along spectacularly, and you should have a blog so that I can find out all about you in turn. Or not! But I really am tickled to read your comment.